EWS #93 On the Sunlit Path – Q&A (34) - on Spiritual Life - 14
Nov 20, 2021
Topics:
Alina (0:00:00):
Thank you. Namaste and good evening everyone. Welcome back to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. My name is Alina and together with Joel from Auroville, we will be hosting Evenings with Sraddhalu series. Namaste Sraddhalu.
[Sraddhalu] Namaste. Happy to be here.
Namaste Joel.
[Joel] Namaste.
We are happy to continue our series on spiritual life and we continue to answer questions received from our viewers. Last time we covered in a very great depth the direct method teached by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and today we will continue and see how we put this into practice and I hope Sraddhalu will lead us into the Sunlit Path. We still have some questions to receive based on our previous sessions. One question from Shankaran: “Sir, if I want rasgullas, if I imagine rasgullas then will rasgullas come into my mouth?”. Sraddhalu, first what is ‘rasgullas’ because I didn't know when I read this question.
Sraddhalu (0:02:08):
Yes, this was just after the session that we had comparing the power of imagination and comparing it with the direct method in the evening series number 91. And Shankaran's question about rasgullas, well that's a sweet, it's a delicacy, very sweet and the idea is if we imagine strong enough, will it actually give you that experience? And there is a lot of literature in the New Age, let's say fashions, that speak of how you can actualize any possibility by visualising it or imagining it. There's a truth to it and the truth is primarily in the domain of the mental world. So if you are in a dream state and in your dream you start thinking of rasgullas, then you will immediately find yourself in front of them and if you imagine feeling them in your mouth, well then you will experience the taste immediately. You can even create, materialise forms and things. If you've all seen a movie called Inception, it's a fascinating movie and I would highly recommend for you to see it just for this because the idea there which is truth taken from the experiences of out-of-body astral experiences is that when you are in the mental world, in the mental body and to some degree even in the vital worlds. Whatever you visualise, whatever you conceive of becomes the reality. So you can actually create your own worlds, create your own realities, shape them, warp them. I remember at a time when I was experimenting to become conscious in the dream, what you call lucid dreaming. It would happen once in a while, but I couldn't sustain it in a conscious way for long. But each time that I would find myself in the dream state conscious, ‘ah, I'm dreaming’, the first thing the mind would do is, okay, now I should be able to create my own reality and I would try to imagine or create objects and for the duration that the lucidity lasted, I was able to do that quite freely.
And it's great fun to be able to literally will imagine things and bring them into creation and that's natural in the mental worlds, which is what happens often after a person has passed away from the body. When you have left the physical body, you enter in the subtle body depending on the levels you are at, the things you want or the things you fear or the things you hope for are created and it becomes a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you end up out of the body, you realise, ‘oh, maybe I've left my body’ or I've died, as they say, and then you think, ‘oh, I deserve to be in hell’, well, you create your own hell. Or you say, okay, where's my heaven? And, well, you create the heavenly images or domains as you visualise it. At least for a while it lasts until after a point you realise, even in that state you realise that whatever is happening is exactly what you were thinking of and then it breaks the the illusion and gradually then there is a possibility of withdrawal from that. So this is just to say that yes there is a truth to it, imagining rasgullas but it then reflects to some extent into the physical body and this is the part I want to highlight. So if you not just imagine Rasgulla but while imagining, let's say you imagine eating a Rasgulla or holding a Rasgulla in your mouth, you imagine but then you try to remember what it feels like and this is where the direct method comes in. You remember what it feels like to eat the Rasgulla, concentrating on the memory of it and the sensation that comes with the memory and after a while you begin to taste it in your mouth. So there has been no physical materialisation but the memory has brought you into the experience which you are able to recreate and then depending on your concentration or the focus of identification you can actually experience the full fragrance, the flavour as well as the taste and experience quite a rich contact with that. And this is on a very physical level. If you had wired the brain with computers, you would actually register in the brain the same signals as if you were eating or tasting the Rasgulla.
This is just to tell you the importance of the direct method even in actualizing physical experiences. Of course there would be no rasgulla but the taste of it can be brought back and if you work on this you can easily reprogram your taste buds and one of the very interesting things you do is I think we mentioned a while back you can teach yourself to like something or dislike something and by using the direct method let's say you have a taste of something you don't like and you want to like it. As you recall the taste, you infuse by the direct method, you try to feel what it is you like or what it is you want to like and by focusing attention on that, you imprint that as the priority, you amplify that part of the experience and reduce the part which you don't like. Until that part remains and after that subsequently when you take the physical food you will find it being liked or the reverse if you want to dislike but it's the direct method which is the primary means with which, well you do it persistently for a few days very quickly you can reprogram your tastes of likes and dislikes. Zo this is I think a quick response to your question.
Alina (0:08:07):
Yes, thank you. So we can proceed to the next question received from a coach: “How do I ask for Mother's protection? How does it work and how do I feel its presence?”.
Sraddhalu (0:08:20):
I think this was just after the last session that we had on the direct method. The question was asking for mother's protection. How does the protection work and how do you know that the presence is there or the protection is working? Well, how would you ask if you had the Mother in the physical body, what would you do? You would write a letter or you would go to her and ask but you would wait for an appointment. Generally, people found that when they wrote letters, often immediately after posting, they would begin to feel the help already operating. And you didn't have to wait for the letter to physically reach the mother. And here comes a very profound insight. At the time of writing the letter, and we understand this now from the principle of the direct method, recall the will and faith. At the time when you are writing the letter, what are you doing? A question directed to the Mother, you are giving it a physical form or you would do it through speech if you were in front of her. But you are giving it a physical form, having given it that, you take it to the post office, until then it is still yours, you have not turned it and given it to her. You take it to the post office and it's only when you throw it in the post box that you turn away, you have sent it. Your part of actual sending was done at that moment. At the moment where in consciousness you have sent it, the clearly formed intention, question or prayer, in the moment of your sending, the spiritual content, the psychological content is already sent. And it doesn't have to wait for the physical object to follow. And in the Mother's consciousness, because it is a consciousness that embraces the whole universe, not just our world and not just each one of us individually, but the universe at the same time as each one of us individually, that's the moment when I have sent it out that she receives it. And as the Divine Mother, instantly as a mother, there is the response. And it does not have to come from her physical body focus at that time in Pondicherry, but because it is coming from her consciousness, it is right here, right now, instantly response given. The physical letter reaching her in the physical body may evoke a physical response and at that point she will say something or something is dictated, written, typed out, sent which may reach you many days later. But by then already things have changed and the letter only confirms what was happening. But if you were conscious, at the point where she sent you the response not even... The point is to understand the actual dynamic taking place is not dependent on the physical letter.
So now let's take the present situation. The Mother not being primarily in a physical body, although in a sense she is there everywhere in all things, but as a Divine Mother in you, around you and of course you must remember within you even as your intelligence and as your aspiration. When you call out, the act of calling out with thought, with words or in a silent wordless thoughtless aspiration, you open to receive help. Just that movement instantly registers in Her consciousness with a response. So how do you ask for Mother's protection? This is the most direct and simple way. A direct movement of opening. I have mentioned this before but I will repeat. There is a very interesting letter of Sri Aurobindo where he says the help is always with you but it becomes effective by the call. Meaning, let's say as the Divine Mother she surrounds you and is willing to help at each moment, but you are all turned to your immediate surface focus of priorities. The help given cannot penetrate the shell of your self-obsession. At the moment when you feel the need for help, you turn, I need help, you turn to her, you do a movement of opening. You break out of your shell or a part of your window of the shell opens because you need to reach out to her and that's when the help can immediately flow in. So the help in a sense is there in the very act of the relationship that you set towards the Divine Mother. ‘I'm here, I'm your child, help me, lead me”- if this is your basic attitude of life, the help is already there but the act of opening in call allows the point of contact through which the help can flow and become more effective. So keep this in mind also, if you're in a state of receptivity all the time there is no need of separate opening, but if you're closed then a movement of opening is necessary until you go back to your closure and then the help seems to weaken and then you again open and the help becomes more effective. So it's not a question of just asking but also setting a state of receptivity. Both are necessary or rather asking helps to open and then the receptivity completes it. So this I think answers the part of how does it work and then how do you know its presence? You feel. Depending on the degree of your opening and receptivity you feel concretely. It may not be in your thoughts, it may not be in your emotions….
I think there was a brief interruption in the video stream. Can you hear me? Is it back?
Alina (0:14:40):
Okay. Yes, we can hear you.
Sraddhalu (0:15:21):
So this moment of opening followed by a receptivity and then in the deeper parts of your receptivity or the call, especially in the parts most open to the psychic influence, you have the certitude, the conviction, the direct experience even of her presence. So that's how I think that answers the question of how do you know its presence, her presence, depending on how the relationship you set. So for many of us, primarily from the prior programming of our modern westernised education. I won't say Western because it's equally Indian today, but it's westernised, highly rationalised and materialised, made material as if the matter is the primary reality. So there's a kind of implicit, I will say, doubt or lack of faith in the active presence of the Divine Mother and so the relationship is more of an impersonal presence. So that's why even in the question it comes how do I know its presence? Yes, because one thinks of it as it as a mechanical pressure, power or impersonal pressure and power which is fine also it's one relationship you can set or you can consciously choose to know the presence as her presence and there is a far greater intimacy and depth and richness.
Alina (0:18:13):
I'm sorry, maybe we have some technical problems on Sraddhalu's side, so he will come back as soon as he is reconnected with the Internet. Please be kind and wait. Thank you.
Sraddhalu (0:18:26)
Can you hear me?
[Alina] Yes, yes, you're back.
[Sraddhalu] I cannot make out how much was lost and whether I should repeat. Otherwise what we could do is that we can upload the local recording.
[Joel] 15 20 seconds it at least have been lost.
[Sraddhalu] Good. So let me then repeat. It's fine.
Sraddhalu (0:18:46):
The act of opening in the call, followed by the receptivity, followed by the presence experienced deep within. These would be the three. <Sraddhalu loses connectivity again>
Okay, it's back.
Alina (0:20:15): Again we had missed about 20 seconds. Okay, so should we have to repeat and you have to repeat it once again.
Sraddhalu (0:19:35):
I don't mind repeating but what do you think Joel, what should we do? Should we continue and put up a recording later, or should I repeat?
Joel (0:20:33):
Just repeat in a few words, if you can, just to summarise the answer.
Sraddhalu (0:20:37):
Okay. So, I spoke of the three things. One is the act of opening to call, but it's the opening much more than the call, and the call, of course, is the form, the intention. The second is the receptivity as you open and you receive the help. You don't fixate on the problem or yourself because many people are in love with their problems and you see a very clear sign when they tell you their problems. They're so engrossed in the details of their problems that you know that they're attached to the problem. There's a part that doesn't want to let go. So the letting go and receiving the help, second point. And the third is the experience, especially in the parts closest to the psychic where you feel Mother's presence vividly and the help and the certitude of her help is felt in those parts. Or if the psychic influences in the mind and in the emotions, there also one feels. As long as the influence is there, if the influence withdraws or gets covered up, suddenly you doubt. So note that it is the psychic influence which will give you the key, the reference. I also briefly spoke, and I will repeat this part, I spoke of how we feel the influence. Sometimes we tend to feel the influence as an impersonal presence. And in a large part it is because of the nature of our education, where we think of things in terms of matter only and so things of the higher reality are made somewhat less real. So we think of the presence as an abstraction or as an impersonal presence. But you may also recognize that the presence is the Mother's love and her personal presence as directed to you and this allows for a much deeper and a more intimate contact and a richer, more satisfying experience of the relationship. So I leave this as your choice of how you choose to relate with the Divine presence as it or as her.
Alina (0:22:46):
We will move to the next question of Salim: “In the case of missing train, how would one distinguish between inner influence postponing and hostile influence delaying or distracting?” It's a very common problem we face.
Sraddhalu (0:23:10):
Yes, yes. I had mentioned last time this incident where this young man wanted to, he was going to come back to Pondicherry and then there was, he missed, he fell asleep, missed the train and I gave that as an example of how some part of the inner being had preferred something different from the obsession of the surface mind. And yes, one could have seen it also as a hostile intervention. Very simply though, when he chose to go right back to his parents house and he just took up that life, if it was a momentary distraction by which he missed a train, you could say it's a hostile intervention, he takes the next train back. But when after that event, he decides, oh this is what I'm doing now and he forgets everything else. That means he was going through an inner struggle. There were two parts in him which were competing. One part which asserted itself with such force then came forward and took over, the other part had no play, no force anymore. And that itself shows you that it was an internal struggle, not an external intrusion. An external intrusion could have been momentary, it could have shaken a faith, but there was no such thing it was just a choice and that's it. What was clear is there were two parts within him which were competing and what pushed forward was a stronger part. We may ask whether it was a deeper or higher truth I don't know but it was an inner part which was much stronger and it could assert itself, that's all I would say. How to distinguish? If I generalise the question, how to distinguish? One would feel when there is an intervention which is negative, one would feel the character of the intervention as weakening the link with the Divine presence or throwing doubt, throwing questions in the relationship with the Divine or in your sadhana. So some such intervention would be the reference. If that is not there, simply something happened, you can just say, well, I was inattentive, or I was misaligned from the help and protection, which therefore couldn't be as effective. And so these little errors happened, and then you push on and continue exactly what needs to be done.
Alina (0:25:38):
And we move to our next question. We have a question received from Alok. Actually, there's two questions. The first one, “I have been naturally feeling concentrated above the head. At times, there is the pressure at the highest point of the head. There is some sensation followed up by goose bumps due to the movement of some sensation moving downward and sometimes out of the body”. And the second question is about his childhood. Alok is writing, “In my childhood, perhaps at the age of 12 or 14, I have heard the Sanskrit chant emerging spontaneously from the heart region. It was Atma-Bhatt Sarva-Bhuteshu-Bhava. It did not make sense to me then. Now I have been focusing on the syllables and their meaning. Biological age now, 57 years, what to do further”.
Sraddhalu (0:26:45):
Yes, I think it's a very interesting question because it relates to what we had discussed last time about the concentration above the head and what he has described is a natural experience of being concentrated here. It's in fact the case for many who take up this yoga particularly. In the early stage of the yoga there is a spontaneous opening deep within the heart towards the psychic presence or a spontaneous opening above the head which is always a sign that the divine Shakti is working in you. From the fact that you have accepted this as your path and opened yourself to the gurus that is Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, immediately the help starts and the Mother's force begins to work in these two centres. So it happens spontaneously and there's a pressure felt which is often the first sensation of the contact of the working of the higher force or the higher presence. And the sensation he describes two movements, something moving downwards and sometimes out of the body, which we discussed last time in depth. So I won't repeat that but you see here in this example both movements, there's the descent of the higher presence filling you as well as there's a movement to lift you or draw you into a greater higher freedom which is experienced at first above the head. Then that freedom itself begins to descend and the same wider experience of the higher, freer consciousness is felt settling and it frees up the lower ranges of your consciousness. So both these are described and I would suggest for Alok to review what we had discussed before, both the last time, that is number 92, where we spoke of the upward movement, as well as the description which was there in the inward practice in number 83 of the series. And as I had promised last time, we have uploaded a video which I have titled the “Guided meditation for descent of peace”, and this was uploaded only yesterday, which is a guided process which you may find helpful to use to enter into an active practice of the concentration above the head. There is some description about these things and both in the experience there is a descent as well as I think there is an immersion in an opening above, but there's a discussion at the end also about it which you will find interesting.
The second part of the question relates to Alok's experience of having spontaneously heard this Sanskrit chant from the heart region and it came from the inner being obviously. Atmavat Sarva Bhuteshu Bhava. So it's a Sanskrit text, sanskrit sentence which means become like the self which is in all beings. Interesting theme for experience and for dwelling, meditation - to become like the self which is in all beings. That is the sense of ‘I’, separateness, as I am separate from all things, but the self is one in all beings, and when I become like the elf in all beings, well I am approaching the self. Or I am immersing in the aspect of the Self which is immanent in all beings in the whole universe. And so that was the urge. Since it happened at the age of 12 to 14, it is interesting, that's the time when the mind begins to form as an independent entity. Of course the mind is always there but the sense of the intellect turning into a sense of an I and the intellect itself coming into its own as a separate power with the power of thought and objective self-observation etc. all these things develop. That's the age when the intellect begins to separate from the emotional being and that's the time when this nudge came from within. And I would say it represents something of the aspiration of the soul for this life's evolution. And to put it in very general terms, if that is what your soul has chosen, you are sure to attain to it. Of course, you have to make the necessary effort also, to allow for this experience to settle in you and to become yours in permanence. And it is doable and soon, once you set yourself onto the task. Biological age 57, you have still enough time, plenty of time in fact to do much more than just this, but this would be certainly something you should take up if you feel drawn to it. Otherwise simply pursue the practice of both the inward opening as well as the upward opening, which would then lead into the general movement of the yoga itself. I think there's one more question which is from Rupal.
Alina (0:32:12):
I am sorry I have missed Rupal’s question: “Inward opening and upward opening. Can we try each one? Say inward at night and upward in the morning?”
Sraddhalu (0:32:32):
Yes, of course, one can do each of these separately. And it's your choice really what you choose to do. But the better way would be to allow the experience to unfold at that moment. So when you begin your practice let's say, you speak of doing at night and one in the morning, when you sit down to concentrate, first, the first movement should be to gently interiorize yourself. You see our whole attention by habit is turned outward, all our senses are turned out and we are so focused on the outward reality that we are not even conscious of what's happening within us and so when you first sit down, if you're still out here (outward) you're not aware of what is within. So the first movement is a kind of a turning inward and even I will say there's a kind of a movement of drifting inward. You as if withdraw from the world to concentrate and centre yourself in awareness of the aspiration which is deep within you or of the Divine presence within you. Just becoming conscious of that, stay for a while in it. Generally at this point, already a movement will begin spontaneously. Either you'll find yourself pulled inward or you'll find your aspiration rising and then this concentration of opening upward will take place. Either of these may start spontaneously in which case follow what happens spontaneously. If something doesn't happen spontaneously then you can do what you wish to do. But still after the initial interiorization everything will be much easier. Both of the upward opening and the inner.
Sometimes you will find the two movements will blend into each other. There may be spontaneously an inward movement and then after that as you begin to come out there may be a turn upward and an ascent. Or there may be a movement of a descent and after the descent fills you, you'll find yourself drawn deeper and deeper within. Just let it happen. So initially these are felt as different movements. Later on they will even blend into a single movement of deepening as well as an upward opening and there may be an emphasis but the distinction won't be so hard. So initially I would suggest allow the spontaneous experience to reveal itself to lead you or if there is no clear direction then you may choose to do whatever you feel like and then again as the experience unfolds it may lead you spontaneously to the second aspect of the movement. Feel your way. It's not so important to do it with a fixed mental idea. In fact that can often interfere with the experience itself. Often when we have a first experience of something, let's say of an opening above head. We expect exact same experience to repeat tomorrow. No, it's not like that. Remember you are opening to meet the infinite. And the infinite can be related to and in an infinity of ways. So each time there will be some slight variation on the experience. Of course there are certain broad features which is the sense of a wideness, freedom, a vastness or the sense of arising, a liberation and so on. There will be elements which are common but the qualitative experience may be different. On some days it will be an opening into a very dense presence of peace above, other days you will feel as if a clear wideness without any density of peace, other days you may feel as if you're entering a ocean of light, doesn't matter. Variation is fine because you're meeting the infinite in any number of ways or you're meeting the infinity of the Mother's consciousness. So don't go with a fixed expectation and allow the experience to lead you as far as possible. In the absence of a clear experience you may of course follow a process as you feel helpful. Ans yes, morning, evening, you can choose to have an intention of doing differently, but when it happens, let the experience lead you. So I think that covers the questions we had set and I would move to the continuation of the discussion which we have been having for the last few sessions.
Sraddhalu (0:37:10):
And for today, I had put the title of the Sunlit Path because having discussed the direct method and its application we see the consequences of this. To step back briefly, the framework of an integral yoga, which of course we will also discuss later on, but the framework of an integral yoga once understood, there is still a priority one may set on the manner of the practice, the tools you use, the methods you use and Sri Aurobindo has discussed that already. Broad method is simply put all of yourself in relation to the Divine and then the means by which you attain certain experiences is what we have described as the direct method, which is by this concentration in the faith and the will on the experience itself, one enters the experience by identification. Very simple, very direct and extremely powerful at the core of all experiences and all methods which makes all methods effective. And this is where we are and before I move, I want to recapitulate some of the key sessions sessions and discussions we have had. In the session number 82, we discussed the degrees of experiences and realisations. That in this yoga there is no such thing as you have it or you don't have it. That's a wrong idea. There is always a gradation, a series of degrees of experience in which you deepen and not only entering the experience but also its expression in life and I had discussed this in relation to the psychic. You see people use this word psychic realisation, Self realisation. In this yoga, that's not so important and you may review that discussion that you go through degrees of relationship of deepening with the psychic but also degrees of the psychic influence coming out. So do not fixate on those ideas.
Our only concern should be deepening the relationship with the Divine as the presence within or as the presence above and allowing that to reveal and manifest itself more and more. And do not try to give to it a fixed idea of a term or fixity of an attainment because that would be deceptive and probably wrong. In the session number 83, we had focused on the inward concentration and as last time we focused on the upward concentration, we spoke of the distinction between the ascetic way and the affirmative way and how it completely changes our view not only of the world, our relationship with the Divine and then of course the nature of the yoga itself. Review this, because this is extremely important, without this the sense of the Sunlit Path would not be complete. And then we had dwelt in the session number 88 on the worship of the Divine Mother. And one of the most important ideas there was that the Divine Shakti is within us. It is She who is animating us, it is She who is the intelligence activating in us, the strength within us, the aspiration. It is She who awakens it, it is She who leads, so it is She who is doing the sadhana. This also must be deeply imprinted as an idea and combined with the direct method this prepares us for appreciating the full sense of what Sri Aurobindo refers to as the Sun. So first I'll read from a few portions of his letters before we enter into the essence of the path itself and how to pursue it. So there's a letter of Sri Aurobindo where he describes the struggle that he has had to go through and the efforts he had to make to forge a path. The path of the Integral yoga and especially in the form in which Sri Aurobindo articulates it is a new path. It is not a repetition of the old path. It is not an amalgam or a mixture or a combination of the old paths. Although the essential realisations and principles of all the paths, all the systems has been included, yet it is not a combination of those. There's something fundamentally new in the way itself and of course in the objective set, in the goal which is intended for this yoga.
Sraddhalu (0:42:00):
So we must recognize that the pioneer who founds a new path must of course not only know all the paths and experience their essential realisations but also in forging a new path he has to literally cut through the habits of nature and so there are two problems here. One is within himself he takes on the burden of human types and human difficulties and exaggerated and more concentrated because he must do it for all variations of human nature. And second, he has to work out what is the best means for the given humanity to grow out of its current limitations into that higher experience. In a way not only that you will reach a higher consciousness but that higher consciousness can penetrate and act within the mind, life energies and the body as they are today. You see the mind as it was 2000 years ago is different. Today's mind is much more intellectual. And so, and its readiness perhaps also is greater, its plasticity is also greater perhaps. But all of that makes for certain variations and then there are of course tendencies which come with the age. All that has to be taken into account in forging a new path. So he is responding to somebody who asks questions and says about all this theory is not good, what is the practice of it and he says, “Of course both the Mother and myself have had one side of the mind as positive and as insistent on practical results and more so than any Russell can be. So we know the difference. We know well what is the difference between a subjective experience and a dynamic, outgoing and realising force”.
So this distinction is very important. You may have a subjective experience, even an experience of the silence of the Self or even of the psychic and then for a while perhaps there is an imprint on the surface and then gradually it begins to fade out and your outer tendencies fall back into their old pattern. That experience by itself may not have been enough to be turned into a power that acts to change not only your surface parts but even your life. So that needs to be done. So this difference of a subjective experience and then an experience where there is a dynamic outgoing and realising force. So both the Mother and him have been concerned with this knowing very well the difference. So he says, “so although we have faith, we do not found ourselves on faith alone but on a great ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. Now all our lives means not just after he began the yoga but even before. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years, more scrupulously than any scientist, his theory or his method on the physical plane”. This he is saying in 1932. Day and night, more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane. Except he is operating on all the planes, not just the physical plane. Had this just come as a letter, we would have said, sounds like an exaggeration, how can he be testing? What does it mean even to test because we have no idea what it's like. Fortunately we have his record of yoga, where we can actually see what he's doing, how he makes these efforts, what kind of resistances he faces, how he overcomes them and noted in minute detail especially in the early stages and then as he moves on to still higher experiences the notations are less and less or they become somewhat cryptic because it wouldn't make sense to us. But we can see the struggle of that passage. I think it is from 1909 onwards from the time he came to Pondicherry that the bulk of the Record of Yoga or from 1910 onwards that the bulk of this content is there. So I'm continuing the text now where he writes, “that is why I am not alarmed by the aspect of the world around me or disconcerted by the often successful fury of the adverse forces who increase in their rage as the light comes nearer and nearer down to the field of earth and matter”. This is 1932 and as you know 1938 it was on the brink of a huge breakthrough, when the Second World War started etc. So that was the fury of the adverse forces trying to derail the whole evolutionary breakthrough. I skip a few lines. “I believe in the probability and not only the possibility. If I feel practically certain of the Supramental descent, it is because I have my grounds for the belief, not merely a faith in the air. I know that the Supramental descent is inevitable. I have faith in view of my experience that the time can be and should be now and not in a later age. It's not like we have to pass through a whole cycle, fall back and then a new cycle will come. That's when it will happen. That's what happened in the past. This time we have come for fulfilment. It has to be in this age”. And he says, “I have faith in view of my experience that the time can be and should be now”. And so we have to hold that faith that he gives us. And again to highlight the importance he gives on the urgency of the solution, he says that we are not interested, I am skipping lines, he says, “we are not interested in doing things which will take many lifetimes to do. Like you it is now in this life that I insist on it and not in another or in the hereafter”. So we have to understand that the whole nature of the yoga and especially this Sunlit Path is for the realisation in this life, not for postponing in another world or in another lifetime.
Sraddhalu (0:48:40):
Now we come to the importance of the Sunlit Path as distinct from the opposite which is the path of great despondency, struggle, effort and so on. And I read from another letter which is dated a little later. “Peace was the very first thing that the yogins and seekers of old asked for and it was a quiet and silent mind that always brings peace, that they declared to be the best condition for realising the divine”. And this applies for us equally because in the integral yoga also the establishment of the peace from above, filling the mind and bringing a base of quietness or silence is a necessary first stage. Then he says, “a cheerful and sunlit heart is the best vessel for the ananda. And who shall say that ananda or what prepares it is an obstacle to the divine union?” He is responding to the questioner's particular statement. “As for despondency, it is surely a terrible burden to carry on the way. One has to pass through it sometimes like Christian of the pilgrim's progress through the slav of despond, but it's constant reiteration cannot be anything but an obstacle”. So keep in mind this whenever people say, oh difficulty struggle, this is what creates an obstacle. The Gita specially says practice this the yoga with an un-despondent heart, anirvinna chetasa. Then he gives a story from Ramakrishna and all that and the point of the these stories he says, is that “Surely when Ramakrishna told it he was not ignorant that there was a sunlit path of yoga. He even seems to say that it is the quicker way as well as the better. You are quite mistaken in thinking that the possibility of the sunlit path is a discovery or original invention of mine. The very first books of yoga I read more than 30 years ago spoke of the dark and sunlit way and emphasised the superiority of the second over the other”. So this idea that there is a dark way and there is a sunlit way has been there for a long time in the spiritual traditions. That is not new. But in the integral yoga, the form that it takes is what we will be dwelling upon. And then he says, “It is not either because I have myself trod the sunlit way or flinched from difficulty and suffering and danger. I have had my full share of these things and the Mother has had ten times her full share”. This is very interesting even as a statement. Sri Aurobindo never exaggerates. He didn't say a thousand times. He said ten times, her full share. And so it's a very precise description. “But that was because the finders of the way had to face these things in order to conquer. No difficulty that can come on the sadhak but has faced us on the paths. Against many we have had to struggle hundreds of times in fact that is an understatement before we could overcome. Many still remain protesting that they have a right until the perfect perfection is there. Many difficulties are there. But we have never consented to admit their inevitable necessity for others”. This is the point. So as founders of the path of course they have to take the burden of these difficulties but the whole point is they take it so that you don't have to. You can then follow the path easily in the wake of what they have said. “So it is in fact to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that burden. It was with that objective that the Mother once prayed to the divine that whatever difficulties, dangers, sufferings were necessary for the path might be laid on her rather than on others. It has been so far heard that as a result of daily and terrible struggle for years, those who put an entire and sincere confidence in her are able to follow the sunlit path. And even those who cannot, yet when they put the trust, find their path suddenly easy. And if it becomes difficult again, it is only when distrust, revolt, abhiman, ego or other darknesses come upon them”. So here is a possibility, you can enter the mode of the sunlit path or you can lose it when the distrust, revolt and the ego affirmation comes forward. But then he says, “But you will ask, what of those who cannot? If you cannot put that trust and faith. Well, it is for them I am putting forth all my efforts to bring down the supramental force within a measurable time. I know that it will descend but I am seeking its near descent and with whatever dark obstruction of the earth nature or furious inroads of the asuric forces seeking to prevent it, it is approaching the terrestrial soil”. So this was around the same time in the 30s and then the last part of the letter some important, I'm skipping lines, “the dark part the dark path is there and there are many who make like the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering” see unfortunately in the Catholic tradition the whole basis of their idea is Christ suffering and the icon of suffering is at the centre of the whole belief as well as the practice. “Many hold it to be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain circumstances as it has been so in many lives at least at the beginning or one may choose to make it so. You can choose to get into that mode of suffering but then the price has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resilience”. I skip a little and he says, “but all the same it is a too dark and difficult path, a too dark and difficult way, which nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie”. So, let's all of us assume there is no such necessity for us and discard that and “it is the soul's demand for a higher truth or a higher life that is indispensable. Where that is, the Divine Grace whether believed in or not will intervene. So it doesn't matter if you believe in the Divine Grace or not this soul's demand for a higher life is what you need. If you believe that hastens and facilitates things, if you cannot yet believe, still the soul's aspiration will justify itself with whatever difficulty and struggle”. Now all this was to lay a foundation for the discussion of what is actually this path is to be recognized, to be acknowledged and in a deep gratitude. In recognizing this, we will find the value of the gift that is given to us of the sunlit path.
Sraddhalu (0:56:50):
So I read from another letter now. You say, someone had written a long letter about how difficult and you are an avatar, you can do, we are ordinary people, we can't do etc. “You say that this way is too difficult for you or the likes of you and it is only avatars like myself or the Mother that can do it. That is a strange misconception. For it is on the contrary the easiest and simplest and most direct way. And anyone can do it if he makes his mind and vital quiet. Even those who have one-tenth of your capacity can do it” Okay, so that puts all of us into the category. Let's assume we have one-tenth of the capacity of whoever that fellow was, who's saying, oh, this is difficult. All of us are in the capacity. The point he makes is, it is in fact the easiest, simplest and the most direct way and anyone can do it. “It is the other way of tension and strain and hard endeavour that is difficult and needs a great force of tapasya”. You see, the fellow who had written the letter was saying things like, we have to make great effort for you as Avatars, it's easy. It's the reverse, he says. In fact, it's easy when you follow this path. It is harder when you do the way of effort, which is actually the hard, dark path. “As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in this ashram or outside. Far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer, a work such as I am certain none else had to do before us”. And this is not an exaggeration for the simple reason that nobody so far in the yoga or religious traditions of the world had sought to transform human nature and divinize it. So that's where of course the struggle comes.
Again to make a very quick aside, the becoming conscious of the deeper and higher consciousness is far easier. The bringing it down to transform is where you are facing resistance. Okay, he is referring to this particularly in the aspect of the struggles and battles they had to face because in a sense as the founder of the path they had to bring the highest Spiritual consciousness into the mind, into the vital, into the physical domains where there are actually beings who are fighting because they were acting on a universal scale not an individual. You see when you act to change in yourself not too many beings bothering you but when you suddenly shake up all the worlds in between because of the power you bring down, there's a massive resistance but that's the only way it will impact permanently a change in all of humanity and even other extraterrestrial beings, mental beings in the whole universe. That's the nature of the work being done. So, this is just to give you a background of why it is like this. “For the leader of the way in a work like ours has not only to bring down and represent and embody the Divine, but to represent too the ascending element in humanity and to bear the burden of humanity to the full and experience not in a mere play or leela but in grim earnest all the obstruction, difficulty, opposition baffled and hampered and only slowly victorious labour which are possible on the path”. Now all this applies to them because they are forging the path. Having forged it, it does not apply to us. This is the point.
“But it is not necessary nor tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the experience of others”. This is the whole point. “It is because we have the complete experience that we can show a straighter and easier road to others if they will only consent to take it”. So here you have the way being shown by Sri Aurobindo and the mother. You have to consent or you can say you are an avatar that is too difficult for me, I will follow the laborious struggle and then that is yours, I will use the word sorry for the strong word, sheer stupidity and opportunity thrown away. They have cut the highway and you say I want to take the difficult route of climbing alone on the mountain, why not simply roll along when it's being presented to you. So ‘if they will only consent to take it’ and then now he says this last sentence of the letter and you must take it as a personal message to you. As if Sri Aurobindo is telling this to you now. “It is because of our experience, one at a tremendous price, that we can urge upon you and others, take the psychic attitude, follow the straight sunlit path with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you. If secretly, he will yet show himself in good time. Do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey”. This is literally an appeal. Having created this, showing you a straighter and easier road. Take the psychic attitude, follow the straight sunlit path with the divine openly or secretly upbearing you. Do not insist on the hard, hampered, roundabout and difficult journey. And very simply as I have said before in the discussion on the ‘On the difference between the ascetic way and the affirmative spirituality’, if you are struggling in your spiritual journey, you are doing something wrong. You've taken the more ascetic path, the hampered, roundabout, hard way, and then of course you face those difficulties.
Sraddhalu (1:03:32):
And this is the way forward for us, the sunlit path. And so we come to that. Here again at first I will read from a few portions of some of his letters. Because there is a certain quality and power in his formulation which I want all of us to catch. He says, “The sunlit path can be followed by those who are able to practise surrender. First, a central surrender and afterwards a more complete self-giving in all the parts of the being”. So, you are not required to have a total surrender now. That will happen gradually, that's afterwards. First is a central surrender, meaning within you something says, here I am and I give myself to the Divine. So, I will always use the phrase Divine Mother more often because that is the more natural way and perhaps the easier way. But if you don't feel that a natural relationship, well, you surrender to the Divine. Doesn't matter for now. Later you'll experience both as a continuum, the two in one. But for now, you open yourself and make this conscious surrender, central surrender. The central part in you turns and gives itself. Now it's not something you have to create, it's not something you have to imagine or formulate. It's already there because your psychic being is already like this yearning, aspiring, waiting, calling, invoking. All you have to do is uncover or discover that which is already within and allow this sense of the self-giving, joyous self-giving in love, in gratitude, allow it to come forward, allow it to spread, allow it to fill your thoughts, fill your emotions, fill your actions. That's all you have to do because it's already there. If it was not there you wouldn't be listening to this, you wouldn't find this interesting, isn't it? It's already there, you don't have to do anything except allow its influence to come forward. So, “If they can achieve and preserve the attitude of the central surrender, if they can rely wholly on the divine and accept cheerfully whatever comes to them from the divine, then their path becomes sunlit and may even be straightforward and easy”.
There are many important suggestions here. ‘Achieve and preserve the attitude of the self-surrender’. Like I said, it's already there. What you have to achieve and preserve is the allowing of it to spread and to fill you more and more in your thoughts, emotions and actions. But that's what you will preserve. If you can do this, then? If they can rely wholly on the Divine. So as long as you are relying on yourself, you will fall short because you just don't have enough incapacity, even in concentration power. But what you have is enough to be able to rely on the Divine and for the Divine Shakti to work in you. So the more you give yourself to Her effort, the easier it becomes. You see, this is a problem I found in many people who have had a strong ascetic imprint. There's a kind of an ego of self-importance. I am making so much effort. I am so great. I sit every day doing so much work, so many efforts, so many whatever. The sense of ‘I am doing’ becomes so important because it's a kind of a spiritual ego that you fall into the error of depending on your capacity which of course you tire after a while, but also thinking that the help given to you was the result of your capacity which is an error in understanding. Because, yes of course you made this humongous effort as a intense struggle, but the result you got, it was because of the little that opened for the Divine Shakti to act in you and through you. And now you've claimed that result saying I achieved it and then of course you try harder and you don't get the same result. You don't even get proportionately more. You don't even get the same result. Because you made the error of thinking it's your outcome, the result is yours, it's not. So, somewhere you have to just let go of this error and the ego which is behind won't let go.
Sraddhalu (1:08:12):
So, the key is this relying wholly on the Divine not on yourself, nor on others. You see, I found in many there is this idea that, I will depend on X who will somehow give it to me. No, at best X is there to support you as a friend on the journey. Anybody. There is only the Divine and you. Yes, in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother because they embodied the Divine at least for those of us who feel that, we rely on them because that's how we rely on the Divine. If you don't feel that, doesn't matter. You still rely on the Divine, with or without form, doesn't matter. But what you do now is to rely wholly on the Divine. Your effort will be there, but the result will be entirely dependent on the Divine action in you. And you will still make your best effort, but no more the struggle or suffering. ‘And accept cheerfully whatever comes to them from the Divine’, so this is the third component. So when you make that self giving to the Divine, invoking the divine help and presence, whatever comes you accept from the Divine, not from the universe. So here again we make a slight correction because of the wrong ideas that come from the mixtures of many new-age loose talk. So they will keep speaking of the universe will give you, universe will help you and so whatever is happening is the universe doing it so it's the Divine will - no it's not the same thing.
There's a clear distinction we have to make and Sri Aurobindo highlights this. Nature in a lower working is a nature in ignorance. Nature in a higher working or as the Divine Shakti is the Shakti to whom we open. But the lower nature, as whatever happens in your life, you say comes from the Divine, no it's not. So a lot of false conclusions and therefore further falsifications happen when people will say, I prayed and then this happened so I take it as Mother's will, no not necessarily. You become passive and you accept whatever comes without making an effort in the physical plane. So let's say, I don't have enough food to eat, I prayed, food did not come, so I say this is Mother's will, so I will go hungry. You see how ridiculous it sounds, but this is what they end up doing in everything in life, wherever it concerns a convenient inertia. Where it interests them, they will go out of the way to make efforts, to fight, to defend what they want or to seize what they like. But where it doesn't matter too much, they will take this duplicitous attitude. This is so common. You have to be conscious of it and not fall into this error. What you ask from the Divine in giving yourself that you fill me, work in me, whatever happens you accept cheerfully, whatever comes to them from the Divine. “Then their path becomes sunlit and may be straightforward and easy. Doesn't mean that you won't have difficulties. They will not escape all difficulties, no seeker can, but they will be able to meet them without pain and despondency, trusting in the inner guidance and perceiving it more and more or else in the outer guidance of the Guru”. So you perceive the inner guidance or the outer guidance as it takes the form today when we are reading the letter of Sri Aurobindo. That's the outer guidance from him but equally you may feel that directly within you as the inner guidance. “It can also be followed even when one feels no light and no guidance. If there is or if one can acquire a bright settled faith and happy bhakti or has the nature of the spiritual optimist and the firm belief that all that is done by the Divine is done for the best even when we cannot understand his actions”, and again this is in relation to the Divine working in you and in your life, not by external circumstances of habitual nature.
Sraddhalu (1:12:45):
I go to another letter and now he comes more specifically to the form of the sunlit path. “The sunlit path can only be followed if the psychic is constantly or usually in front or if one has a natural spirit of faith and surrender or a face turned habitually towards the sun or psychic predisposition of faith in one's Spiritual destiny or if he has acquired the psychic turn”. You see a series of this or this or this or this but common to all of them is this general turn of the optimistic turn to the Divine and the psychic influence being in front. “That does not mean that the sunlit man has no difficulties. He may have many, but he regards them cheerfully as all in the day's work. If he gets bad beatings, he is capable of saying, well, there was this queer go, but the Divine is evidently in a queer mood and if that is his way of doing things, it must be the right one. I'm surely a still clearer fellow myself and that I suppose was the only means of putting me right”. You take it as part of a light relationship with the divine, you don't make a big story around it. Then he says, “But everybody can't be of that turn and surrender which would put everything right is as you say difficult to do completely. That is why we do not insist on a total surrender at once, but are satisfied with a little to begin with, the rest to grow as it can”. Then he discusses some more things which we need not go into, but you see the point here usually in front, spirit of faith or spirit of surrender or a face turned habitually towards the Sun. You can see that as the Divine Mother or the Divine Presence or a psychic predisposition that is faith in one's spiritual destiny or the psychic turn.
So this faith, spiritual destiny is extremely important and faith in your spiritual destiny. What is destiny after all? Destiny is the choice of the self. What the Self freely chooses, this is what I want to experience or do or acquire or express or whatever the Self chooses freely unrolls in nature, unrolls in manifestation as an eventuality that nothing can oppose because all is the Self so whatever opposes is also part of the Self and is used for the outcome. Things can come to delay but they are used to make the final outcome stronger or more complete or more powerful. Nothing ends up eventually opposing, all ends up participating. That's why it is a inevitability. So when yourself, your psychic being as its representation, projection in you in space and time, when that has chosen a certain direction or a realisation or a participation in the divinisation of life, that is your destiny, your spiritual destiny. It is inevitable and nothing can prevent it. Of course things can delay it, but the delays will be used for that outcome to become more complete. But they are not necessary, the delays are not necessary. They are in a large part dependent on your conscious participation or resistance. So faith in one's Spiritual destiny, that is what he calls a psychic predisposition. So if you have any of these, you are ready to follow or you can follow the Sunlit path.
So now we come to what is it that you need to do to follow the sunlit path. When you are, what you are experiencing, this is from another letter, “What you are experiencing is the true foundation of the spiritual life and realisation. It has three elements: First the love, which is the heart of bhakti, then the descent of peace and equanimity which is the first necessary basis for realisation of Self and the higher knowledge. What comes with it is the descent of the Force which will work out in you the whole sadhana. Thirdly, the feeling of a guiding Presence or Power which is the basis of karma of work and action founded in the Spiritual consciousness”. So three things - love in the heart which is at the heart of bhakti, the descent of peace from above which is the base for the realisation of the Self and higher knowledge, so even including opening to higher states of consciousness and the force descending which will do the sadhana in you. Third, the feeling of a guiding Presence of Power and on the basis of this you can be actively in relation with the Divine Presence in your work. So in another letter again he speaks of three but with a slight variation but not significant. You can reply to X that the three experiences he is having now are the right ones. Opening of the psychic through the heart, descent of peace and the consciousness of his true being as witness. And the third is consciousness of his true being as the witness. But these experiences must be developed, deepened, completed and made the ordinary state of the consciousness. So established, they become the triple foundation of the sadhana.
Sraddhalu (1:19:25):
So again we review the three, but remember first we have a glimpse of these three and then you develop it, then you deepen it, then you make it complete until it is there all the time. Don't worry about that. Start with the three and a point of contact opening through the heart of the psychic presence and influence, descent of peace and the consciousness of in this case, the consciousness of the true being as witness or in the other letter the feeling of the guiding presence or power of the Mother or of the Divine Presence whatever form you get. Of these three you see the most obvious is what we had discussed last time, the opening upward and opening inward. And both of these combined together help for the third, the perception of the presence active at all times. And the movement of the descent from above is the most significant in the sense that with it the action of the Mother's force working in you becomes direct and the sadhana that much faster, more smooth and the results more complete. So it is on this that we will bring back our focus. You now know the necessity of the for following the sunlit path in the context of the integral yoga and in terms of practice what you need to do primarily if you take these three as the reference for the triple foundation of the sadhana and the sunlit path is what we have to choose, because it is in this life that we must realise the work to be done otherwise would be too many centuries and too many lives away and unnecessarily delayed and struggled. What for? When it can be done smoothly for which they have built this free highway on which you can smoothly roll and yes there will be a few bumps, there will be a few turns, there will be a few difficulties or sometimes roadblocks also, but you'll find your way around them or hop over them, primarily still flowing in the free flow of the highway, of the Sunlit path.
And so I come back to the guideline which I've been repeating through all these sessions. Whenever you find yourself struggling, know that you're doing something wrong. Step back, review. And what are the things you have to review? Well that's what we are discussing now. Make the correction required, ask for the help and allow Her to carry you. You literally feel Her presence, Her love and you let yourself flow. In the guided process that we uploaded yesterday which is called ‘meditation for descent of peace’, you will notice the same thing. If you try to translate this as instructions and try to do, you'll find yourself hampered. If you allow the experience to flow, then it is the Mother's force, consciousness that just carries you and the whole thing unfolds freely, beautifully, smoothly and even joyously. And so this has to be our way in the practice of the sadhana.
In summary now, at this point I will ask you to review, if you like, some of these discussions we have already had so that certain of the significant discussions can be understood in context of all that has happened afterwards. See sometimes we hear something we don't realise how important it is. Later on having gone through other discussions you review and you say, ah yes now, I realise, I understand better. So perhaps even from the Evening series number 82 onwards or if you like even from earlier where we have been discussing the spiritual life and spiritual practices. Review those if you like, try to internalise the value of these guidelines and practices, insights, shifts in attitude and let it be yours as a living force, as a living truth within you. From the next session on we will take up a more structured discussion of the framework of the integral yoga particularly the aspect of the yoga of self-perfection with its seven facets actually he presents it as one foundation and six facets on top and we will take up a quick view of that but it will, in many elements it will summarise what we have discussed but in terms of practice it will still be this which will be the base of the practice so that will not change much. I think that's a good point to pause at.
We can take a moment to concentrate and feel the Divine presence or turn in heart's gratitude to Sri Aurobindo, to the Mother for this enormous effort, enormous struggle and battle that they have had to go through in order to build this path, forge this way for humanity, for something which has never been done before not just on earth but on any planet to divinise physical life including all life and so it is something new in the whole universe in the Spiritual history of the universe for which they have forged this path and we have taken birth to participate in this extraordinary realisation of the Divine manifesting, Satchitananda manifesting in the world, in matter including. So in gratitude, in aspiration, we may turn… conscious of the rare opportunity that we have been given and the help which is constantly with us.
Sraddhalu (1:26:06):
Namaste and thank you.
[Alina] Thank you. Namaste.
[Joel] Thank you. Namaste.